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Awe, come on squib... -40 is a nice day in Butte MT in January. Gotta love those hometown memories--I grew up in the Elk Park valley north of Butte. We took the top spot for coldest place in the lower 48 one winter with -92. Now THAT was a little chilly.

nanuk>> if it wasn't for my redneck engineering skills, I'd be lost---on the other hand, I'll likely blow myself up one of these days. It would appear there are a few here who can relate.

I will have to learn how to use softer alloys probably to get mine to work. Any suggestions?

Awe, come on squib... -40 is a nice day in Butte MT in January. Gotta love those hometown memories--I grew up in the Elk Park valley north of Butte. We took the top spot for coldest place in the lower 48 one winter with -92. Now THAT was a little chilly.

Don't worry, Al Gore will save you with his global warming myth, just like he's saving NYC right now. The snow in Central Park isn't supposed to be much more than an inch deep at present. It's only a little more than a foot deep north west of there. Only about 3.2 million people are reported to be without power in that area right now, due to the snow storm. This shouldn't surprise anyone very much. After all, it is nearly Halloween. This late in the season it should be much colder.

Winter of '78/'79 Gas Hills, Wyoming.
60 below zero, 60 mile an hour winds.
Wind chill factor was -108 degrees. Had to be calculated because it was off the chart.
Froze the diesel in the mining equipment.
Us electricians could work about 10 minutes out of an hour. The balance was in front of salamander kerosene fired forced blower heaters inside the building. And even at that it was sub-zero inside.
Dam, what a night that was!

Brass monkeys were nowhere to be found.

Over 70% of the wildlife froze to death that winter in the blizzards.

Hell froze over.

God Bless America!

Sittin here watchin the world go round and round...
Much like a turd in a flushing toilet.

+1 on 50/50 clip-on WW and soft lead (like roofing lead) with a touch of tin for malleability (1% addtional should be plenty, don't "overtin" the diluted WW by adding more tin than total antimony percentage).

A mix of mostly sticky weights (including the harder lead alloy stickies that are painted) and a little bit of clip-on alloy with 1% additional tin works well too. Most stickies average 6-7 bhn at my house, and 75% with 25% clip-ons and 1% tin get to about 8-9 bhn depending on the particular mix.

Either of these mixes will shoot accurately to 850 fps in .45 ACP and expand fully without disintegrating. In smaller calibers or guns with higher pressures, a tougher alloy will be needed both to preserve accuracy and prevent over-expansion, and a smaller HP pin might be needed too.

One more thing, Phaessler, you might make a step on your HP pin to coincide with the tip of the boolit nose and fade the taper into it to give the boolit noses a little more fortitude to handle the rigors of recoil in the mag and feeding without rolling the mouth inward too much.

Thanks gearnasher, been wrapped up on a home project, and might be out of comission, I insisted on screwing my self to the porch framing,, ouch, worse was I had to unscrew it too. But none theworse, I will look ath the pin and see if I can get a picture up.

You guys came along at the write time.
I have a question on the material an the process for making your HP pins. Rangefinder In your pictures you showed several different types of metals to use for pin material. Do any of them do a better job? Did you find that after heating, the pins changed dia. enough to cause a problem?
I ask because. I have the penta pins for 2 of Mihec molds that I would like to reshape into more of a cup point.
Subject change
Rangefinder Your pictures gave me another good idea. The picture that you showed, where you were making the HP pin shape. I never considered putting the item to be shaped along the side of the DP table. That must make the item to be shaped much more stable. You could even C-clamp a peace of wood on the table up close an personal to the item that needs grinding.
I am working on making the powder meters for my Little Dandy dispenser. I think you have solved one of my problems.
Meany Thanks Kevin

In terms of thermal volume expansion of metals and alloys, I'll admit my engineering math is a little rusty--someone still getting paid to do that could give you more precise numbers on how to use the equations. Technically, if you know the alloy or primary base element, you can plug in a coefficient to an equation and pretty accurately figure the amount of volume expansion under given temperatures. BUT, since we're not building a quantum computer, I'll go so far as my weekend brain can see fit. Of the typical alloys and materials used for our molds (IF I remember my thermal properties correctly), steel expands the least, then brass, then aluminum the most. I cut my pins out of steel, and most of my molds are aluminum. When the molds are cold the pin is an easy slip-fit. Once up to casting temp, the mold expands enough to make the pin a tight fit. A couple times I've had to polish the pin down a little because the pin slot expanded enough that the mold wouldn't close completely and gave me fins. The reason I work the pin rather than the mold is that cutting a new pin to fit is easy, but once the mold is enlarged it can't be reversed.

As to using the press table---I use it as a rest, but I don't let it actually contact the piece I'm working. Tooling free-hand doesn't work out well--vibration, tool chatter, etc. Using the table edge as a tool rest makes it more stable and absorbs the vibration better, lessening chatter and resulting gouges.

I bought an Ideal mould-452-423 single cav. from a fellow member with the intent to hollow point it myself. I figured if I botched it I would only be out $15. After receiving it and finding it to be in mint condition, possibly never used, I decided it deserved to be sent to Buckshot for a professional job. Now I'll find another to do myself, maybe one of my Lee 2 cav.

Nice idea. Looks like I will be modifying some moulds as soon as I can get my reloading room set up. Been married 8 years and haven't had time to do a lot on that room. But it IS started. Sometime back I bought a Unimat 3 lathe/drill press/mill. Been chomping at the Bit to fire that thing up. Here is a REAL good reason to fire it up. Thanks

Ohhhhhh, the excitement is building in Rangefinder's shop tonight. I traded one of our fine members for a 148gr. Wad Cutter for my .357 Black Hawk. And you guessed it--I'm HP'ing one of the cavities. Just bored and polished it for a pin tonight. Gotta turn out a couple pins I wanna play with over the next day or two, then it's playtime. No photos yet, but I promise--they ARE coming! Stay tuned!

One more thing I want to add... I'm seeing quite a few guys jumping on this crazy train. How many have tried it? Lets see some PHOTOS!!!

I have a Lee 340 grain, .458-diameter .45-70 mold that this process might be useful on--my only potential firearms to use this boolit in are .45ACP and an Uberti .45LC, so I need to knock some weight out of it!

Remember, even though the bullet would be lighter from the hp, it is still the same length as the heavy bullet so seating debth, thus powder charge, will stay the same.

Technically, surface area vs. weight deviation means the lighter boolit of equal surface contact offers less resistance, thus decreasing pressures of equal charge--meaning charge increase by weight ratio of weight decrease is necessary for equal pressures within the burn rate of the powder chosen... But we're all following the common practice of load it normal and ladder it up accordingly.

if they didn't have that HP your good-lookin' boolits wouldn't get squished like that!

OK, how about: stop shooting at water jugs!

Squib--I LIKE squishy boolits! Since my water jugs held milk previously, are you going to call me lactose-intolerant? LOL